History Podcast and Blog

While the first emergency service telephone number was 999 in the United Kingdom in 1937, it took the United States a little long to implement the service. Things started happening in the US during 1957 when the National Association of Fire Chiefs recommended that a single number be used to report all fires. In 1967 this was seconded and built upon by the President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice. They suggested that it be used for all emergencies. The project fell to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) which meat with AT&T in November 1967 to discuss a solution. By 1968, AT&T had the system implemented. On February 16, 1968 Alabama speaker of the house Rankin Filte placed a call from the Haleyville City Hall to Tom Bevill at the city’s police station using 911. When Tom answered he simply said, “hello”.

The system was not widely used however as it took many cities and towns time to implement the system. The number itself was not widely know about until the 1970’s and it took until the mid to late 1980’s before most places in the US has 911 services.

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Historyonair.com is the online home of the History Podcast. You can find history related articles, video, and audio files here. You can contact the author of this blog and its content at historypodcast@gmail.com.